Empire's Heir
by Andrea Rimsky
Summary: In Ozorne's Carthak, Kaddar has his friends and his studies but also family duties, dangerous rivals and little actual power over his life or the lives of those he loves. Amid the paranoia born of constant fear, the surveillance, and the essential helplessness, how precisely does the imperial heir differ from his slaves?
1. The duty of Empire

PREFATORY NOTES

1. "The Emperor's Heir" follows the history of Kaddar as I have imagined it in "Sub Malis Principibus" and "Inheritance." It might even be considered a sequel, or a series of sequels, to those stories.

2. The universe belongs to Tamora Pierce. I take all responsibility for the poetry.

3. WARNINGS: canon-typical violence, slavery and associated brutality, sexual violence, dehumanizing language

4. A note on canon-compliance and dating (which is also true for the stories mentioned in note 1): in _Emperor Mage_ (year 451) Kaddar is said to be 16 years old; his father was killed five years before (447), in the same year that Carthaki mages opened the gates to the Divine Realms. This story is set most plausibly one or two years before _Emperor Mage_ (449-50), but it is nevertheless pretty clear that I mentally pushed Kaddar's age up by a few years, since he is imagined to be already 15 or 16 in this story and not 13 or 14. However, Kaddar's birth date is not given in the timeline on Tamora Pierce's website, and the statement about his age is actually given to an unnamed Tortallan, who could plausibly be imagined to be less than accurate! This assumption, along with the assumption that Carthakis count like Romans (inclusively from both ends, so that Kaddar's father died in 448) would probably produce my ideal situation. But let us not be too fussy about these details.

* * *

Prologue. The Duty of Empire...

The guards pushed the man hard onto the lowest step of the dais and saluting the Emperor, stepped back. There was no need for words. The Grand Council and all the assembled populace knew who the chained and prostrate prisoner was. From where he sat beside and behind his uncle, Kaddar felt himself go cold in spite of the sun that the canopy only inadequately kept off from the Imperial Pavilion. At last, not only was the campaign over and the rebellion crushed, but the last rebel chieftain had been dragged from his hole and brought to imperial justice; Ghazanoi Ilorat's death had not been in vain, but now it would also not be avenged. And this was Barca – this was the man who had dared to declare himself an independent prince, and by whose sword the great general's life was known to have poured out. Barca, defeated, and now finally pulled from hiding in the final crushing of the Sirajit rebellion that Ghazanoi Ilorat had effectively ended.

Kaddar wondered how many soldiers' sons were able to look on the murderers of their fathers. There was the hand that must have gripped a deadly sword, and that had been stained with Ghazanoi's blood. He could not look away, but he would rather not be looking either, so he gripped the arms of his chair. Surely, he had never truly hated before this! This morning, he had been reading Hannorian, and he had been composing his mind into dignity and calm. But that memory seemed distant, now. His father should see this; his father had done this for the Empire. How unjust was it that Barca should be alive on this day of triumph and his father dead! Wetness irritated his eyes: not grieving tears, for those he had worn out long before, but anger and disgust. But women wept and loosed their passions on the world. For good reason were his mother and sister absent today. He had to bear up and be a man, a nobleman, a bulwark of the empire.

The Emperor smiled to see his enemy so abject, but it was the briefest of smiles and quickly composed into Imperial sternness for the benefit of the audience. He turned towards Kaddar. "So, my nephew," he said, his voice amplified to carry to the furthest reach of the crowd, "this – man – should be yours, by our oldest right. Our dear brother Adhirbal should have had this Triumph: this prisoner should be his. By the rights of a son and the rights of vengeance, take him freely and do as you will."

"Your Imperial Majesty knows," replied Kaddar, after an appropriate and rehearsed hesitation, "that I would like nothing better than to take the revenge that my filial duty demands." Amid the roar of the crowd, he briefly considered that picture. He would take a sword from one of the guards and slay Barca where he lay. He would kneel at his uncle's feet and present the bloodied sword. Lines from a play came to mind:

_Him bearing my grief the very gods  
can no way fault if just. For of all fathers  
the very worst deserve best vengeance, and mine  
by as much more as he was best  
deserves it more._

No philosophy for him now, but savage tragedies. Yet he had never killed any man in cold blood, and he could not quite imagine doing so now. And they no longer lived in such rude times, but under the rule of law. His father would have told him that his true duty was elsewhere.

And so Kaddar continued to speak. "But by Your Majesty's will, let him rather be given the penalty of a traitor and a rebel, and a murderer. His crimes are first to the Empire, and let Carthak exact her punishment. My father did not desire glory for himself, but Your Majesty's welfare and the Empire's; I could not shame myself in his memory by seeking lesser things."

The Emperor gave a private smile and a regally public nod; his hand moved in a more visible gesture of command. No one's eyes were absent as the executioners did their work. Crowd and court remained until Barca's convulsions had finally ceased.

As he processed back to the palace, Kaddar thought about the justice of it all, not about the blood and the screams and the shouting approval of the crowd.


	2. And its Reward

II. ...And its Reward

"Ah, Kaddar," said the Emperor, "here you are at last."

"I beg Your Majesty's pardon," said Kaddar, bowing deeply to his uncle, and trying not to display the nervousness that he was accustomed to feeling whenever he found himself in the Imperial presence. His uncle rarely called for him in the middle of the day. The last instance, he thought, had been when the news of Barca's capture had finally come. But then he had been summoned to the Emperor's privy chambers, not to this blandly elegant receiving room. Mythical scenes, fashionable a generation ago, and now charmingly obsolescing, still adorned the walls, the couches were stiff and shiny, and the carpets plain. Mistress Kingsford called it 'gentle' – the appropriate chamber for hearing high-level but unimportant petitioners. So he was to be one more item on the imperial schedule, today.

Emperor Ozorne waved the apology away. "I remember my days at the University – never a moment's rest from study. I'd wager these are the first words you've heard all day not in Old Thak."

Kaddar admitted that this was true, but demurred that it should not have kept him from an Imperial summons and then reiterated his apology, because the situation seemed to require something else to be said. The couches looked lovely. Two hours of debating in the morning and then a wrestling bout made standing at imperial attention less than comfortable.

"Your forbearance yesterday," continued the Emperor, "deserves some reward. Ghazanoi would have done no less."

"Truly, then," said Kaddar, "that is the reward itself: to know that I have lived up to his standard. They were formal words, yesterday, but not idle ones."

"No, no, Nephew: this is but your just due." The Emperor snapped his fingers, and two of the Emperor's Guard entered with an enchained boy, whom they forced prostrate in the Imperial presence. "Barca's get," observed Ozorne. "It's rather surprising that _he_ could whelp such a pretty boy, isn't it? ''Neath godlike hides they hide deceitful hearts' indeed."

"Um," said Kaddar. "Yes, sir." The boy did appear well formed, although he found it hard to judge, not being able to see his face. Not that Kaddar necessarily had any erotic interest in such a thing at all. But he did look like the most artistic sort of emblem of a Subjugated People on the walls of the Imperial University. There was not much resemblance, Kaddar thought, between the boy here and yesterday's criminal. One might say something there about evil and the changes it wrought in a man, perhaps.

"You gave up the father to justice; the son is yours. You may kill him, if you like, or sell him – only do not let him escape. It would be a terrible shame if Ghazanoi's son were the instrument of undoing Ghazanoi's work." He smiled at Kaddar, who inwardly shivered at the implication. But there was no real fear there. He might be a university student, prone to impractical humanitarian philosophizing, but he was no wild-eyed boreaphile who would set free a captured and criminal slave. Certainly not Barca's son, much as it might be preferable to keeping him about. But the emperor continued to muse. "It might be better, indeed, if you didn't sell him. Proud little _princes_, after all, should serve princes." This last seemed more than half directed at the boy on the floor. It occurred to Kaddar that his words had really not been idle: the emperor had been grossly offended by the rebellion.

"There was a girl, too," continued the Emperor, before Kaddar could more than stammer a confused mix of thanks and assurances. "A very comely little thing. But I think that your studies would hardly benefit from _that_ distraction as well, eh?"

Kaddar was unsure whether to agree or not. He could hardly say yes, but he could hardly imply that he enjoyed Yamani Practices, either. He thought that it was unlikely that his Imperial Uncle would care about either kind of admission; he would probably even enjoy the hearing. But in normal circumstances, which Kaddar liked to pretend he was in, one did not discuss this sort of thing with one's uncle and guardian. Or one's emperor, for that matter. So he merely nodded, with what he hoped was a rueful but sufficiently insouciant smile.

"I have kept her for myself, I'm afraid," the Emperor added off-handedly. "I believe my _little birds_ will enjoy her care." Kaddar bit his lip, half amused and half horrified at the half-heard rumors the comment brought to mind. Theboy on the floor stiffened and raised his head in a vicious glare.

The Emperor ignored him. "Excellent then. Now I shan't keep you from your studies – each to his proper duties, made even more onerous, I'm sure, with all of this tiring fuss." Kaddar would have bet this new and unwanted gift that his uncle was fonder of the 'tiring fuss' of banquets and festivities, or at least of the public acclaim that attended them, than he might pretend. On the other hand, he would have happily bet Barca's son on the least plausible chance, after having mortally, so to speak, offended the Graveyard Hag. Although the goddess would likely make him win, in that case, considering what motive he had for the stakes...

Kaddar had to forcibly unknot his brain from this train of thought to pay attention to the emperor's continued speech. "...But I hope you will dine with me tomorrow, Kaddar, in private. It's the only respite we shall have for some time."

Kaddar found his voice at last: at least this had an obvious and unexceptional answer to it. "Gladly, Uncle. I am newly at Your Majesty's disposal with gratitude." Every other night this week was a court dinner, and he and Zaimid Hetnim had been going to spend tomorrow in revision for Master Lindhall. It was some comfort that his large oration for the mock-trial would be over by then.

Ozorne laughed and waved away his parting salutation.


	3. The problem of power

III. The problem of power

"What is your name, boy?" Kaddar asked when the guards had left, Barca's son deposited in his chambers. Who stood before him with a sullen set to his shoulders, hampered by fetters as well as a by slave collar, but did not reply. He was younger than Kaddar, but only by enough to be clearly a boy. Skin just lighter than Kaddar's own, straight shining hair and round, pure features, lithe and juvenile limbs, dark-flashing eyes: he would be a fine page-boy, or, Kaddar could well see, a bed-mate, if one inclined that way.

"Come, answer me now."

Barca's son continued to stare straight into his face, shoulders thrown back in aristocratic hauteur. So-called prince indeed: Barca had evidently spared nothing to train his son in arrogance. Kaddar idly wondered if the sister had the same pride. It would not last very long in her, he imagined. Or perhaps his uncle would find her haughtiness amusing. And the irony was that this boy might well have remained, if not a prince, of at least considerable rank in Siraj, had Barca not fomented rebellion. In a few years, Kaddar might have seen him at the University, smiled to hear his first attempts at public oration, encouraged him, and introduced him to Father, who was always pleased to see provincial boys rise in honor. Instead, the potential patron was dead and the possible native governor equally so, for a slave had no more right to honor than a corpse. It was such a waste. Had Barca considered what he was destroying for himself when he tried to fight imperial power? Hannorian was right to say that ambition was the ruin of mankind.

"You had better match your manners to your state," he said, impatient. "It may be a hard fate, but it is far more merciful than you might have had." As he returned the boy's surveying look, ever careful to appear impassive, he realized that he had been wrong, glibly philosophizing to himself in the emperor's receiving chamber. It was not some obscure "evil" that had distinguished the father from the son, but pride. Barca, yesterday, had been defeated twice over, subjected to the taunts of soldiers and the indignity of the triumphal procession. He had been broken and perhaps even repentant, certainly harmless. Maybe he too had realized how needlessly far he had fallen . But defeat had evidently hardened his son instead of crushing him. Who continued to stare – and did Kaddar only imagine that his expression was now tinged with scorn?– at his new master.

Kaddar suppressed a sigh. He lived easily now with his new attendants, although he knew that their loyalty, such as it was, was to his uncle and not to him: he did not need another strange slave, and particularly not a recalcitrant one. And he had work to do: the university counted a two-day's holiday for the victory celebrations, but the imperial court a fortnight's. In some particularly cruel, or at least particularly conscientious, fall of the Hag's dice, he was a principal speaker in a mock trial all this week. He was a reasonable man -- he had no intention of visiting the crimes of the father on the son – but the last thing he needed was a pet rebel.

"I do not demand your adulation," he said, cuffing the boy. "But I do require submission and willing service, and I will have them from you." It was embarrassing to have to say this; the embarrassment was at least half of his anger.

The boy had flinched when he had been struck, but he did not raise a hand to his head now. He continued to stare at Kaddar. "Fucking Carthaki."

This was beyond too much, but Kaddar kept his calm. He did not even point out that he himself was but half-Carthaki in the strictest sense, that Siraj had been part of the empire for generations, or that its people had been granted what was functionally Carthaki citizenship until Barca's revolt. Nor did he indulge in a crude joke about the boy's choice of obscenity and the risk of its literal enactment. It was an unworthy man who proved his wit on his slaves. "If you do not keep a respectful tongue, you will keep no tongue at all." He turned away and sat down to his oration, pointedly ignoring the boy while trying to find the place he had left off upon his uncle's summons.

A minute passed. Kaddar forced himself to memorize the next period of his speech. _I walk through the second receiving room and into the Blue Chamber: a statue of a mother and her dying child: "The gods' adornments from the temples, ancestral treasures from tombs, a nobly-born child, sacrifice to unnatural lusts, torn from his mother's arms; merchants taxed unlawfully, fields depredated, citizens starving. But allow—"_ Kaddar felt a prickle at the back of his neck. It was trial to sit calmly, hearing the boy breathing across the room. But he could not turn around now. _"But allow me, Reverend Councilors, to pass over these trifles. These are surely not the sort of peccadillos that concern the Empire, that are to be the worry the guardians of law and justice. We should be careful not to make our swords too easily called upon, lest they lose their decorative brightness."_ Was there too much subtlety in that last point? Maharcal would have a thousand criticisms of "decorative brightness" _re_ unused imperial power, a thousand well-founded and unvoiceable criticisms. "Pretty shine," he might say. It was more pointedly ironic, almost painfully unsubtle, but not so dangerously ambiguous. _Lest they lose their pretty shine_ – he had better make the statue in that room particularly shiny.

It was so tempting to turn around, and so hard to concentrate with that quiet insubordinate breathing instead of accustomed silence. He might command the boy to be quieter, yes, and mark himself as fastidious and irrational. Instead, he played with his pen, trying not to imagine the indignity of being attacked from behind by a chained slave, but unable to think about his memory palace instead. _Then to the Rose Chamber: a bloodied ax..._

But he had judged it correctly. For all his bluster, the boy did not and apparently would not do anything he thought might really endanger his life. Ondros came presently with fresh tea. He looked inquiringly at his master and at the boy.

"Barca's son. See him beaten well, and find him something to do." Kaddar turned back to his oration, not bothering to watch Ondros genuflect and lead the boy out by a hand firmly on his shoulder.


	4. Enemies and Friends

IV. Enemies and Friends

Kaddar was not very much different, in most respects, from any of the other young noblemen with whom he trained and studied: they were all preparing to eventually take seats on the Grand Council, or to have the governing of a province, or to command one of the Imperial Armies. They all had family duties and court appearances when they were not studying: that and their military training were what set them apart from the common scholars. But there were incidents during which Kaddar was brought home to how particular, and particularly precarious, his position was.

He was presenting his speech in the mock trial. "I need not ask you, Reverend Councilors: whether there would there be justice in requiring the victim of theft to pay again to catch the thief, it is so evident that such a law would rather make poor men swallow their losses and so permit criminal men to run free. How, then, can it be less despicable to demand of a ravished province that it pay the costs of prosecuting its despoiler? And if we wish to punish thieves, how much more should we desire to punish those rapacious governors who feed like lampreys on their people and defile the name of the Empire! Yet as Fazioi Baeculsikh said most eloquently in his case against Tabaro, 'what use are assizes to a man already condemned to injustice?' A people already abused will rather bear their abuser than suffer again to bring him to trial. If you should set this precedent, Reverend Councilors, you will ensure that our highest courts become mocked, being unused, and that being unpunished criminals, nay, traitors to the Empire, destroy the people."

Turnos Aisthroi Metorat was taking the part of the Speaker in Defence. "I would put a question to my noble opponent," he called out, as Kaddar finished the period. Metorat was not one of Kaddar's particular group of friends: the two men did not get on very well at all, although Kaddar would certainly never have admitted this. "Ghazanoi Iliniat," he said, "cites the opinion of the late Fazioi Baeculsikh. I venture to ask what he thinks of Baeculsikh's loyalty to the Emperor."

The room was silent. It was hardly a secret that Fazioi Baeculsikh had been posthumously declared a traitor some eight years before. Nor did anyone not know that he had been Kaddar Ghazanoi Iliniat's maternal grand-uncle. Everyone had these connections; no one spoke of them. "I find Aisthroi Metorat's question to be out of order," said Kaddar after a moment. Baeculsikh's legal orations on provincial matters have no bearing upon his loyalty."

"Nevertheless, Iliniat," pressed his opponent, "you avoid my question. What do you think of Baeculsikh's loyalty?"

"I think that it is irrelevant to the case at hand."

"But do you think that he was loyal?"

Kaddar felt heat spread across his face and make every hair on his neck stand up. He looked to the master, but their teacher was standing back; he would not interfere. It was, on the surface, merely an odd and digressive question. "I think, Metorat," he said after a moment, "that you make a mockery of the Emperor's justice by even discussing the question of the loyalty of a condemned traitor, and I, for one, wonder that you have such an un-academic interest in his treason."

Now it was Metorat's turn to blanch. He muttered something indistinct about only trying to make Baeculsikh's guilt clear and meaning no disrespect to the Emperor. Kaddar began to imagine breathing, and the mock trial went on.

"It was shocking, what Metorat tried today," Maharcal Heroboi Aelsikh said to his friend as they walked back towards the palace, "but you did well, to turn it back on him so."

Kaddar shrugged. It was uncomfortable to think that he might have "turned back" the suspicion of treason on anyone to avert it from himself. But surely Metorat, of anyone, deserved it. "He was just trying to distract from his own poor speech, I'm sure."

Maharcal winced and laughed. "True enough. It's a wonder he thinks he can get away with such faulty prose week after week."

"A wonder that he does get away with it," said Kaddar. "But it isn't really surprising, when you think about it. The speeches they give in the Grand Council have nothing on the old ones we study."

"Sometimes I wonder if the great speakers didn't polish their words up for posterity when they published them."

"Surely not!" protested Kaddar. "Or, at least, not too much. And it's just impossible to think of any of the great orators giving something as bad as the speeches made about the Agrarian Laws in the Council last week. They were utterly feeble. I wonder why that is. One tends to think that Art is improved with succeeding generations."

"We haven't the subjects now that they used to have." Maharcal smiled his gentle smile. "Agrarian Laws are all very well, but they don't inspire eloquence the way riots in the South Quarter do. It would have been very exciting to live in those times." The gentle smile became decidedly dreamy.

"But we should be thankful that we do not," Kaddar said sharply.

"Indeed. Peace is always preferable."

"But there is still no reason for a decline," Kaddar said after a moment. "Indeed, an uninspiring subject should give more room for brilliance of craft. I shall compose the most elegant words about military allocations in the Northern provinces for next week; you will all be stunned by the beauty of my oratory. And you will see: everyone will concede to my argument."

"Of course," said Maharcal, playing along. "But it is easy to be persuasive when no one has a real opinion on the subject." There was an awkward break in their conversation.

"I, for one, am still shaken after that debate," Kaddar said finally. "What do you say to a bout of swords to steady our nerves?"

Maharcal assented, and there was no more talk of studies that afternoon.


	5. Dinner with the Emperor

V. Dinner with the Emperor

Later that evening, a slave tsked and fussed with the fold of a mantle as a spasm from his master's shoulder dislodged the pleat he was endeavoring to pin.

"Hag's curses, Ondros!" Kaddar put his arm down in frustration. "If it doesn't stay now, it certainly won't last the whole evening."

As the slave gabbled apologies and excuses, Kaddar tried to compose his mind into anecdotes to fill the evening's conversation. But he was sure that it would come back to the incident with Aisthroi Metorat. It was impossible that the emperor not have heard every relevant detail. Metorat's father, moreover, was beginning to make a name for himself as a general. As Ondros arranged the folds of his mantle once more, Kaddar tried to tell himself that the emperor hardly cared about every schoolboy argument that happened in the university, and that he had said nothing to compromise himself, anyway. But he nevertheless shook a little as he remembered his stupidity. How could he have blindly quoted Baeculsikh? Or did it even matter? He sometimes wondered if he was becoming obsessed with his own danger. One of Master Reed's friends, a physician from Tyra, had lectured last week about one of his patients, a merchant who was convinced that variously the city council and his own family were trying to poison him. Of course, as Astarte Psamno had muttered beside him, with Tyrans, that conclusion was entirely plausible and not madness at all. As it was entirely plausible that a single unguarded word could destroy Kaddar at his uncle's court.

Ondros was still fussing when the first strokes of the hour began to ring. "Oh give over," said Kaddar. "I don't know what's wrong with you tonight." He hurried out, hoping he wouldn't be late, but settling on a text to have been engrossed in if he were.

"Kaddar!" Emperor Ozorne swept his bow into an embrace. "Excellently punctual, as always."

"We have the best wine, tonight," the emperor remarked as a slave poured and withdrew silently. As Kaddar reached for his cup at his uncle's gesture, a misplaced pin pricked his shoulder. (Did one have to be the emperor in order to find competent servants?) "Not two hours ago I received a dispatch from Aisthroi Metorat: complete victory at Jiang-Ra."

Kaddar nearly choked on his wine before he was able to distinguish the father from the son. "That is wonderful news, Sire." Maharcal's older brother was one of General Metorat's legates, enforcing at least outward politeness between the two younger men. Kaddar wondered if the relationship would soften further, and he be left to hate Metorat alone, when Farid came home full of tales and adulation of his commander. If Farid came home. He hoped that he could get the casualty report early, and that he would be able to reassure his friend on that count.

The emperor leaned back against the gold and brocade and toyed with a tassel. "It piles well upon the defeat of Barca. And yet, there are some who complain my empire is failing! I imagine you hear such mutters at the University, Nephew?"

"They are said, I'm sure, sire." Kaddar took another sip of wine. "But not where I can hear."

"Hm." The emperor frowned. Kaddar fixed his eyes on the tablecloth, tracing the damask patterns. Did his uncle suspect a lie? It wasn't even the right question to ask oneself. Was his uncle trying to catch him in a lie? The enameled band on his right wrist was supposed to charm against magical detection on such levels. Kaddar somehow felt that it had little power against such a great mage the emperor. Who now leaned closer. "But, I am sure, you hear something – some rumor of a whisper, at least."

"I suppose – that is, I here that there are some who are still unsettled by the Immortals, sir. Who listen to old wives' tales of portents rather than scholar's expositions. But I have never heard them other than as subject for mockery." It was an extremely pathetic and evasive answer. Everyone knew a grandmother or an old nurse who rattled on about flying horses and the end of the empire and betook herself off to the Hag's altar. But one didn't worry about irrationality from women and slaves. "I hear taken more seriously, sir..."

"Yes?" The emperor dropped his low voice, becoming positively crisp and businesslike. But he continued to hold his nephew' eyes. Kaddar wished he were mage enough to tell whether his mind was being breached with the subtlety that his uncle could surely bring to bear.

"Concerns about the drought, Your Majesty. That the mages cannot foresee any quick end." Kaddar did not mention that he himself was among those who found the prognostication a cause for concern. He had remitted the personal taxes on his family lands by half this year as relief; he hoped his uncle was too busy to examine his heir's private accounts.

The emperor waved his hand. "Ah, yes, the droughts. Did you know, Kaddar, that Our Cousin across the sea had similar hardship in the year of his coronation? Complete harvest failure throughout the realm. I saw immediately that it was caused by the massive magic of his so-called Dominion Jewel. (It's a common explanation now, but I understood it even before Ar– but I digress – suffice that you would be quite familiar with all the theoretics if you were a mage, Nephew.)" Kaddar imagined that the stifled reference was to the treacherous, or maybe merely unlucky, Aram Draper. It made him quite glad not to be a mage of enough power to be worth formal training. The emperor sat up, gripping the side of the couch. His face was more concentrated and eyes more bright. "And what do we see now? After opening the Divine Realms, We suffer in the same way." He sighed. "I wish my ministers would understand that this simply must be weathered, so to speak." At the emperor's sign, slaves had begun to bring food.

"How are they not convinced by the scholarly evidence, sir?" Never mind that Tortall had suffered the loss of a single harvest-year, not a slow withering, and that the Contés had made every effort to alleviate the famine. _The gods help those who help themselves_.

The emperor waved his hand. "Small men. Some distrust what they don't know; some want a disease to win renown by curing. Or," he said, a bit more quietly "they would have evidence of the gods' displeasure: pretenses for revolt and their own graspings." He looked down, and dropped his voice further into weariness. "There is not a man in this empire, Kaddar, who would not happily see me dead to advance himself a few steps." In despondency, the emperor put down his fork.

"Surely not, Sire." Kaddar never knew, at times like these, whether his uncle was voicing a true suspicion or merely testing him. He chose his words carefully. "Even his gratitude aside, sir, no man can but fear Your Majesty's power."

He seemed to have spoken at least passably, for, "Enough. Enough of this rumor-mongering." The emperor laughed a short harsh laugh. "Tonight, at least we may celebrate victory!"

Kaddar raised his glass. "Then, 'Long life to Your Majesty and the Empire'!"

"Indeed." The emperor matched his toast. Out of habit, Kaddar let a little wine spill on the floor before drinking; Ozorne raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. Kaddar reminded himself to be more careful hereafter.

"I have been thinking, Nephew," the emperor said as they began the principal course, "that our General Metorat deserves some... reward... for his victories. It would be unfitting for him to remain so distant from Us, the governor of a large and prosperous province. If the people are to acclaim him so, we can hardly ignore him."

Kaddar was unsure how to answer. "That is true, Your Majesty."

"And successful generals can be such a danger, if not watched," mused the emperor.

For the second time that day, Kaddar wondered if he would breathe again. Surely it was not the case, his uncle was not implying...?

"A necessary victory, Imperial gratitude, popularity with the people: how soon before rebellion?" Father had never contemplated rebellion; on that count, Kaddar was as certain as he was afraid of Mithros' justice. Nor had he looked for popular acclaim, nor influence at court. Surely the emperor had known that. _But had the emperor cared?_

"Hah! And some day, Kaddar, all these troubles will be yours!"

Kaddar responded to that automatically. "I hope not soon, Y--"

But the emperor continued. "So what would you do, my nephew and mine heir?"

Death in battle was a natural hazard of a general's life. There was no reason to think that his father's had been anything but fate taking her due. And in any case, so many lieutenants and aides could not have been fooled, or suborned against their commander, he thought, as he answered his uncle's question honestly. "I – the general's subordinates will surely be watching him, looking to advance themselves, Your Majesty. Is that not a natural check to ambition?" He remembered his father's First Legate, whom Father had more than once praised for competence and loyalty, and his manfully-repressed grief at the state funeral.

"Very true." The emperor smiled. "How amazing: that Our stability comes from so many petty rivalries. Eat, Kaddar – we can talk as well between mouthfuls as before them."

Kaddar lifted his fork obediently. He did not think that he could be less hungry than he was.


	6. Mastery

VI. Mastery

Kaddar had heard men talk of moments when they wished that they were children again, who could run to their nurses for comfort. It had always seemed like a silly, over-done conceit, but as he hurried back toward his own rooms, he thought that there might be some meaning after all, in the desire to go back to an age where tears were enough to earn comfort. Yet himself, he still felt no such wish. He tried to imagine kind Gaiede, her soft linen and warm arms enfolding him, her kisses and soothing murmurs. But his nurse had so little to do with this world in which he found himelf! How could Gaiede and childhood help him here, where clothing was stiff with embroidery, and both arms and words were hard and threatning?

Father, heroic, self-sacrificing Father, had possibly been killed by the orders of his paranoid, or merely cruel, emperor. Kaddar knew it was unlikely. Probably his uncle had merely been musing, on truths that everyone knew. A successful general could be dangerous, lacking his father's loyalty. If General Metorat were in any way the father of his son, he would have the same odious ambition that Kaddar hated in his classmate. It was merely a coincidence that Father had been killed – _conveniently killed?_ – and that General Metorat had been vaulted to dangerous acclaim so soon afterwards. Merely. A. Coincidence. He gritted his teeth and tried to formulate a plan of study for Master Lindhall's examinations tomorrow.

Ondros was not waiting upon his return, and did he appear at Kaddar's impatient call. Instead, the hateful form of Barca's son answered. Kaddar nearly yelled at him to get out, to remove his treacherous, servile, barbarian body from his master's sight, to let him never look on the foul reminder of his father's death -- _assassination?_ "Where is Ondros?" It was not possible to supress his anger entirely, but he cared very little. Fear might prompt truth; certainly, in this slave nothing else would.

"He's out. Sir."

"Out?" Reporting to his master the Emperor, or merely shirking off?

The question, and its tone, should have prompted pleading, excuses, and blame heaped on Ondros; the boy merely shrugged. "His aunt took ill."

Kaddar forced himself to ignore the insolence. "And Ghamel?"

"You didn't call for Ghamel." Two beats, this time, before a respone came. "Sir. He went to fetch Ondros back, when you called," the boy added quickly, as if realizing too late that his master was not inclined to be cast in the farce of the Clever Slave.

"Do not try me, boy!" Had he not been hampered by his mantle, Kaddar might have knocked the boy down there, cursing him at every blow. To be made a mockery of by his slaves – by the misbegotten bastard of a gabbling barbarian and his she-goat slut? It was too much. It was insupportable. So this was the reward for leniency, this for giving servants leave to see to themselves when their duties were done and for treating them kindly: two lazy slaves and an impudent one? They should all be beaten to the mite of their lives, this... insolent dog-faced unworthy piece of humanity most of all, and --

"No please, please, don't kill me!" Somehow, the boy was kneeling with his arms raised over his face, and Kaddar was standing over him, his own hand raised in spite of the folds over his shoulder, which, now that he was aware of himself, were clenched uncomfortably against his neck. Without thinking, he let his fist complete its unconscious intent, viciously pleased, and relieved, too, when it connected with the slave's bare shoulder. The boy gasped and shied away.

Kaddar straightened and moved back, calmed by the release of violence. "Let that teach you not to tease my forbearance." His voice was still shaking, but he was not sure whether still with anger. He should not have done that. Hannorian had said that the true slave was the man who yielded to his passions, and the philosopher Druson had never, they said, hit his slaves in anger, but had beaten them the next day, when he could punish with a calm mind_(1)_. His father did not approve of philosophy, but he had never seen him raise his hand against a servant. Father, all of whose virtues had not saved him, _or had even destroyed them_.

"Get up," he said, after a few moments of breathing. "Come help me out of this."

The boy was unpracticed, but it was easier to undo a mantle than to fold it on. He only poked Kaddar twice with pins, and managed to avoid spilling the cloth entirely onto the floor.

"Now you shall tell me your name," Kaddar said, lifting his arm so the mantle could be unwrapped along his side.

"Gisca, Your Highness."

"Gisca. I shall be clear." Kaddar paused, and the slave dropped a heavy pin that clattered on the tile. "I have many reasons not to favor you; your insolence exacerbates them. I do not maltreat my slaves. It is not my habit to bugger them, or to torture them for my amusement, or to punish them for trifles. But if you do not submit willingly and obey, I will break you to obedience in every way I know. Do you understand?"

Gisca had knelt to pick up the pin; he raised his head, but he was subdued in tone. "Yes, sir."

Kaddar pushed the last length of cloth off his arm at the boy. "Put this away – fold it first – then you may bring hot water and a plain tunic."

There was no time to be wasted, and Kaddar took out his diagrams of the Four Archetypal Blooded-Animals, and propped them up so he could commence while he undressed. He began to chant the names of bones as he took off his formal tunic, racking his mind and notes for all the exceptions in orientation and notable variations in all the animals in Master Reed's lectures. The adreneline of study buzzed in his temples and he made it push out the horrible uncertainties the evening had awakened.

Kaddar paced half-undressed until Gisca returned with the water, unwilling to sit and dedicate himself to study until he could wash his face and put on fresh clothing.

"I – my lord, Ondros and Ghamel have returned," said the boy, as Kaddar washed the kohl from his eyes, splashed his face, and donned the simple tunic.

Ondros. He didn't have time or mental space to spare to tongue-lash the slave before Master Lindhall's examinations. "I shall speak to him tomorrow." Let the man worry about his master's ire through the night.

Kaddar now sat down at last to proper study. His feet were touching something unlike the carpet on the floor. Drat. He had forgotten about his fine shoes with their fiddly laces and knots. "Gisca," he called softly.

"Yes, Sir?"

Kaddar gestured with his head. "My sandals, please."

The boy turned, and looked at Kaddar as he approached, not quite undertanding until he had come quite close. Comprehension flitted across his face, and then revulsion at being ordered to perform such a servile task. But he knelt, and Kaddar felt his bony adolecent fingers on his ankles as the laces were untied. In only a few moments he was free. It was not so late yet: he would study for several hours before calling for tea.

* * *

_(1) _This anecdote is adapted from one given about Plato in Plutarch, _On the Delays in Divine Justice_. – A.R.


	7. Among Friends

VII. Among Friends.

"Don't worry so much, Kaddar. You were fine – almost perfect." Zaimid Hetnim put a hand on his friend's shoulder.

"I'm not worried about Master Lindhall and his examination," snapped Kaddar. He had forced himself through hours and hours of memorization and revision the night before, reciting litanies of bone names and reptile classifications. Study and sleeplessness had pushed darker thoughts from his mind, but now they returned to fill the vacuum in Master Lindhall's wake.

"What?" Said another familiar voice behind them. "Is anatomy less to your liking, now, Kaddar? Hallo, Zaimid."

"'Lo Maharcal," said Zaimid. "Our prince here is the only man I know who despairs _after_ he has answered examination perfectly."

Maharcal waved the complaint away. "That, my dear Healer, is because you have never attempted the law course. Our Kaddar has promised a sparklingly polished speech on a blindingly dull topic, and now -- without your _examinations_ to excuse him not working -- he must compose it."

"So much effort to decorate nothing," said Zaimid, mock-wearily. "You can keep the laurels for your worthless air, gentlemen. But, for me, 'I love the universe, not lies.' Speaking of which," he now addressed Maharcal. "Lehtep says it's a go for Orastis. Tomorrow week."

"Orastis what?" said Kaddar, roused from his worries, where he had been ignoring his friends' banter.

"Ha! That would wake him up," said Maharcal. Then more softly: "Lehtep Hetnim is trying to organize a group to read Orastis. Without all of the over-bred idiots, that is. You'll join us, won't you?"

Kaddar looked down. He had not read an Orastis play since before his father's death. Not all the way through, anyway. But Maharcal loved classical literature and longed for the time of its writing, and Lehtep Hetnim had not been afraid to say that he wished he had been born in time to live under the wisest of the emperors. "I – what will you be reading first?"

"_Tanaquil of Conté_." Kaddar raised his eyebrows. Surely Lehtep and Maharcal did not really think that the exotic northern setting would allay the dangers of a work about the overthrow of a wicked king. "I think Tanaquil was my first love," Maharcal continued. "I adored her when I was a boy:

"Let no man say I lived, my father dead,  
and by my hand, but neither let them say  
I felt the bond of proper filial love  
too deep, and as a simp'ring bitch who fawns  
and dotes upon the one who drowned her brood --  
Maternity forgot, she licks his hands  
and loves in single mind -- that so  
I let my nation perish although he  
who perished it I called my lord and father.  
Come then, my sword, come Death: her breast awaits  
who gave up honor for her country's sake!"

"That's not Orastis; that's melodrama!"

Maharcal shrugged, dropping his tragic pose. "I've been working on a translation for my sister."

"You'd do better to teach her Old Thak, my friend. From experience, sisters become much more bearable when they're learned."

"I shall refrain from answering that with the old quip about women and languages(1), dear Prince."

"You might at least spare your falcon, then," put in Zaimid.

"Your natural philosophy comes out: does Master Reed lecture on the dangers of bad poetry to birds? But come, Kaddar, enough. Read with us."

"I don't –- Maharcal, you know" – _that I might endanger myself and you_. But he was too afraid of some omnipresent magical eavesdropper even so say so much -- "You know that I haven't the time for something like that. My duties and the natural philosophy lectures keep me busy enough." And if that wasn't enough of a hint for the oft-oblivious Maharcal, he didn't know what would be.

"But Kaddar, I know you—" began Maharcal, as, "If you don't read the part of Lord Gareth," said Zaimid, "they'll make me do it."

The nobly born claimant against royal tyranny. Oh, how appropriate. How awfully and dangerously appropriate. And his friends thought it was all fun and daring; they did not know how easily and undetectably an imperial nothing could destroy a life. "No!" Kaddar's voice was louder than he had meant it. "Don't be fools – or at least don't draw me into your foolishness."

Maharcal looked pensive, but Zaimid was frowning. "Kaddar, what in the Graveyard Hag's hell is into you today?"

"Nothing!" Kaddar turned away. "I want nothing to do with Orastis."

"Kaddar, that's not--"

But Maharcal was shaking his head; out of the corner of his eye, Kaddar saw him restrain Zaimid. "Well, we shall miss you, then, Prince. Perhaps the future will give you more leisure."

"Thanks," said Kaddar. "I hope it will." He had to control himself better, not let this half suspicion of a rumor destroy his peace of mind – or him. "I'm sorry I lost my temper."

Maharcal waved it away, and they walked in silence for a time.

"Excellent news from General Metorat, isn't it?" Zaimid seemed to be speaking only to break the quiet.

"Yes," said Kaddar. "Very." If General Metorat died suddenly, then he would know. But if he did not? The emperor might not risk killing off a second general, when the memory of the first's death at the moment of glory had been freshened so recently. _Or the emperor might have been merely speaking in figures. Even commanders can die in battle_.

"I don't suppose," Maharcal began. "You haven't seen the casualty lists, have you?" His voice was artificially light. "Farid's la– most recent letter dates six days before the battle. My mother and sisters are rather anxious." Imperial mages could transmit reports and letters in an instant; even a general's legates had to send news by slower and less sure routes.

"I haven't; I'm sorry. But the first I know, I'll pass on."

Maharcal nodded. "Thanks." Another silence. Now it was he who pulled himself out of his study. "And two days of holiday again. With all due respect to General Metorat, he timed the victory rather... nicely."

"Ha. His son needs the time if anyone does." The general's son Turnos had been due to present his case in two days, now fortuitously postponed two more. "So Metorat has more than one reason to celebrate."

"More than two, I think," said Maharcal softly. At Kaddar's questioning look he elaborated. "A victory for the empire, and his father is covered in glory, and well."

Kaddar nodded, wondering how long his enemy's father would survive his triumph. "That's so."

"So Princess Pazia will come for the triumphal week now that is is double?" Once again, Zaimid took the burden of the conversation.

Kaddar considered how difficult it must be sometimes to be the only one with no reason for melancholy. Zaimid's large happy family was all at home and all amicable: noble and trusted by the emperor, but not so nearly related as to be threatened, or threatening.

"No," said Kaddar. "My mother will not bring Tecmesso to the city when the summer is still so bad. Not even for a triumph. And she is still distressed – she could not bear the reminders of my father, I think."

Zaimid nodded. "It grieves us all, you know. But my mother will be sorry not to see Tecmesso. Perhaps Midwinter, when my sister is married?"

"I hope so." Kaddar privately found it impossible to imagine his mother among the fashionable and scandalous noblewomen of the capital. She was too dignified, of too high rank, and too old-fashioned and good. And picturing her greeting and being greeted by the emperor, by her brother, now seemed nearly obscene. He felt an older brother's protectiveness to Tecmesso as well: she and his mother were part of some other, earlier, simpler life, and he was not sure that it could stand up to the reality of his new one.

They were at crossway where Kaddar turned to the palace, Zaimid to Hetnim House in the fine district adjoining, and Maharcal to the only slightly less elegant quarter where his own family resided. Embraces, encouragement, promises for engagements and threats for sparring the next day. This day's last pleasure was over: dinner with the Emperor, its last duty, remained.

* * *

(1) Ancient Carthaki epigram attributed to Esopis the Satirist:  
Idham adores his hawk more than his wife; know why?  
It comprehends his orders, doesn't fly.


	8. Man's Estate

VIII. Man's Estate

"So, Kaddar! How goes it with Our nephew?" At the state banquet, now celebrating two great victories for the empire, the Emperor would enter accompanied by his heir. A slave poured cordial in an antechamber, away from the bustle of last-minute palace fuss.

Kaddar tried to smile naturally. He clasped his hands behind his back. "Well, sir." He remembered the day's examination. "Very well."

"I hear only good reports," said the emperor. "That you are becoming a fine rhetorician, for example, and a perceptive thinker." He motioned for his nephew to sit, and the slave brought glasses.

"I'm sure my teachers are only being kind," Kaddar said quickly. "I have much less ability than many of the men."

"I had little use for rhetoric," the emperor mused. "My other studies took up so much time..." He laughed. "But I have no need, fortunately, of sneaking and flattering words and of legalisms."

It always annoyed Kaddar when his Uncle, or Lady Varice, or Zaimid, or any number of the non-noble courtiers dismissed rhetoric as just so much deception. It wasn't, he told himself, just because he happened to spending so much of his time studying it that he wanted to defend his study. So he merely smiled. "I hope I'm rather practicing to make the truth more appealing, Your Majesty."

"Such an idealist." The emperor idly fluttered his fingers on the arm of his chair. "I was certainly that, at your age. Why, Ar—my friends and I would talk all night, remaking the world after the painting of our minds. Do have some more cordial, Kaddar."

Kaddar obediently lifted his cup as a slave, having perceived the Emperor's desire, stepped to refill it.

"I do not think it immodest," Ozorne continued, "to say that it was fortunate that imperial power passed to me, who was so well equipped to use it. There are so many useless men – "slaves to their stomachs" – and witless men, and men who are content to let the world plod along and who limit everything to the bound of their own dullness. And so many of them in positions of authority and influence!" He toyed with his cup for a moment, as if musing on his own observation. "Do you think about such things ever, Kaddar?"

"Sometimes, sir. That is, I do think about the vagaries of fortune, and about natural ingenuity." His uncle would hardly need more evidence that his nephew was an idiot and a poor speaker, and Kaddar wasn't even trying to be inarticulate. "It seems that – however often they do match up – there are too many cases where a man is, as you say, inadequate for the opportunity he has, and the opposite too, I suppose. How many men of intellect are consigned by poverty or obscure birth to be nothing and do nothing of note?"

"A difficult situation." Kaddar could not tell whether his uncle were serious or making a joke on the earnestness of his answer. "How do you resolve it, Nephew? You may be emperor someday, with so much power to improve the world. Or, as I am emperor, give me your idealism and advice."

Kaddar's head hurt. It was playing at philosophy, or answering the questions as a Master led one on, but the wrong step (or the right step?) was off the sheer of a cliff. "I suppose... Druson tells us that the best rulers choose the most promising youths and educate them properly to succeed them: not by kin but by kind."

"But it must begin somewhere: where do you find your first rulers?"

"But Your Majesty has said it: you are best fit to rule because you wish for other rulers as well-suited. Elsewhere, it may happen otherwise, but in Carthak you are our beginning. It falls now to you but to continue."

The master would have demanded more, would have easily demolished his argument from the beginning, and mocked him for easy answers. But that was not the point, obviously. The emperor smiled. "Excellently said, Nephew. You are quite the philosopher."

_So even philosophy bows to a king_, Kaddar thought. A good epigram, one that Maharcal would appreciate; Kaddar wondered if he would ever be able to pronounce it to anyone else.

"But not without your father's practicality, too." Ozorne continued. He shook his head. "A terrible loss."

Kaddar swallowed. "I hope I am like him, sir. My mother has often enough chid me for having my head in the clouds instead of following his example."

"Women." The emperor dismissed the whole sex with a wave. "The empire needs brains as well as soldiers. More so, even. And yet – I have a purpose to speaking thus to you, Kaddar."

"Yes. Your Majesty?"

"You recall, of course, the matter we discussed last night?"

Kaddar hoped that he only felt the shudder and did not show it. Now – the moment of truth? "The problem of generals who are too com—too successful and popular, sir?"

What seemed to be a truer smile and a more pleased look suffused the emperor's face. "Indeed, Kaddar. Indeed. To the heart of the problem – no sentimentality and denial; no pretense about what is really in the balance. Excellent. But tell me, Kaddar, should we hold such a – shall we be blunt? – such an enemy near or far?"

"I – I don't know, Your Majesty." That was no good. "That is – the conventional wisdom would say near: – "He hated me: I held him near as love." But perhaps the common sense of it is too simplistic."

"Kaddar, Kaddar: such an equivocator. No, let us say that we should keep those most dangerous most close." He sipped his own drink.

"Then you propose to recall General Metorat?" And give him a high title in the Council to assuage it, Kaddar supposed. It would make his son insufferable.

His uncle looked up with mild surprise. "And lose the good service he does in the provinces? Hardly."

"No, Your Majesty. Of course not." Kaddar felt like a fool: although he would never have said that the emperor's approbation, however well deserved, was something he could prize, he now wanted to see the pride and pleasure again. "What is needed is some way to tie his interests closer."

"Precisely. Metorat has but one son, you know."

Knew rather too well, thought Kaddar. "Yes, sir."

"Yes. Metorat will hardly rebel while we hold him here – in honor, of course, but with that threat of danger that is always present in Imperial honor."

Did he only imagine the glinted reminder of threat in the emperor's eye. "I'm afraid I don't understand, Y—"

"He shall marry your sister, Kaddar – the husband of a princess can hardly desert my court – or his family my eye."

Kaddar shook his head, as if to clear out what must have been a mishearing. "Tecmesso, Your Majesty? For M—General Metorat's son?" _Oh no no no no no! _Tecmesso was so young; she was still a child. And Metorat: was there anyone more vicious?

"I shall announce it in a few days; the wedding can wait until General Metorat returns, of course."

"Sir – Your Majesty – my sister is still young. She is hardly ready for marriage. And Turnos Metorat..." Was there a way to say 'is an immoral opportunist and a licentious ape who would be a torment to any noble virgin so unfortunate as to be married to him?'

"You object, nephew? I suppose," – the emperor smiled with kindness – "you shall have to speak seriously to the general's son: tell him to treat your sister well. You are growing well into your responsibilities as head of your household."

"I hope I can only protect my sister as much as my father would have," Kaddar said stiffly. But this he could not let go by without fighting. "Please, Uncle – Sire – let me protect Tecmesso a little longer as a child!"

The emperor frowned.

"I beg you, Majesty, by my father and his services, grant his children this." Kaddar knelt and stretched out his hands.

"Don't be a fool, Nephew. When a more advantageous marriage presents, and Metorat is no longer a danger, I shall dissolve this one. Your sister will marry a nobleman in the end."

Once, Kaddar would have had to bite his tongue in order to keep from saying that Metorat would never not be a danger until the Emperor had disposed of him, too. But he was by now well practiced in silence.

"Get up. Kaddar." There was steel underneath the conciliatory tone, and Kaddar shuddered. "You are proud to be in your father's place, I know." The emperor held up a hand to forestall the argument that started to bloom in Kaddar's throat as he got to his feet. "But you cannot possibly need to make an external alliance while I am alive."

Kaddar swallowed. "No, sir. I would never--"

"Shall I ask you formally in Ghazanoi's stead?" The steel had vanished, and the emperor seemed older and more somber. He took Kaddar's hand and raised him, brushing silk against silk, and motioned for him sit. The emperor waited until Kaddar had settled in his chair again before continuing. "Or, may I ask informally, as a friend to a friend?"

Kaddar held his breath. Was the emperor treating _him_ as an adult and the head of his family? It was illusory control, he was stable in his knowledge that it was illusory, and yet it was the illusion of a trust that he would not have believed his uncle would ever pretend was his.

"I have no children of my own, and I am dependent on the generosity of my brother-in-law." He sighed. "We need this security, Kaddar: our powerful generals must be bound to us. We are all a family who cannot but sacrifice for the good of the empire and the continuation of the greatness we would instill in her."

"Sir – Your Majesty – I am honored, and I only want to remind – to ask – that my sister's age be considered," Kaddar stammered. "I would never willingly obstruct your wish, but Tecmesso is so young."

"I think that we can be confident in the training of my sister Fazia." The emperor gave Kaddar a conspiratorial nod. "And I have good proof before me that Ghazanoi's blood produced noble and worthy children, mature and wise before their years."

The praise rang in Kaddar's cheeks throughout the banquet, as he conversed politely, tasted mechanically, spoke civilly to Metorat, and promised him the honor of his sister's hand. It still burned late in the evening when the slaves had been dismissed from his private room and the lamps shaded, and when the letter had been written that very properly told his mother that he had betrothed Tecmesso to Turnos Aisthroi Metorat by the Emperor's recommendation. When all that had been done, Kaddar let disgust and self-hatred and cynicism return.


	9. In the Night Garden

IX. In the Night Garden

Summer might be in its wane, but it was still too early in the year for night to be dissipating the day's heat. The panes had been removed from the windows of Kaddar's study and replaced with thin screens, but the night was too still for a cross-breeze. It was hot and stuffy, and there was so little draft that the shadow cast by the oil lamp's flame was as steady as if it were painted on the wall.

If one was staying awake when the entire palace had passed through drunkenness from celebration to sleep and only the night guard were at their duties, one ought to make that wakefulness a time for reflection. If one had ordered head-clearing tea instead of finishing the banquet's work with more wine, it ought to be in order to do something significant and soul-searching. If one, in sum, refused the natural remedies for pain that sleep and indulgence offered, then one ought to be upholding the significance of the pain and vowing oneself to action.

But instead, Kaddar faced even at this hour his neat piles of notes on extraordinary military requisitions. Here, from the archives, the records of Orders of Compulsory Assistance passed by the Great Council, including the ones pertaining to his father. And there were the extracts he had been making yesterday from Belisar and Melqart:

_2.1.1 When the Duke-General had marched his armies 57 parsangs, which occupied 6 days, they arrived at Kilwa, an inhabited and wealthy city. The legions proceeded, provisioned in water and bread..._

_3.33.2-34.5 The envoys from the Lwatae arrived as commanded on the third day...and they offered first fruits to the Duke-General. Their submission and the harvest completed, he stationed a guard of three decuria about the granaries and led the 17th, the 9th, and the 12th legions toward the North along the valley of the Mbibu river._

He tried dully to think, shifting his pages, which example would best serve his narration. He could only remember that the marginal notes had adduced some significance from the order in which Belisar named the legions. It was irrelevant. Kaddar pushed the sheets away, taking some surely uncharacteristic satisfaction from the disorder. _My sister is going to be married. My innocent sister ripped away and given as a bribe to a vicious fool_.

He ought to smooth the wax over his working tablet. When the diagrams and loosely-sketched periods were obliterated, he ought to write powerful words, authentic words, life-threatening words that would reveal the depths of his contempt for Metorat, his fears about his father and the emperor, his belief in Justice and What Is Truly Moral.

But he did not move, and, when the moment had passed, Kaddar resigned himself to the tedia of daily practicality: if rhetorical work was going to be as fruitless as sleep tonight, he might turn to Master Reed's reptile bones and natural hierarchies of birds. As he took up a scroll of Yalulema's _Natural Questions,_ made more valuable and rare by the annotations of Al-Saif, he felt oppressed by thought of the servants just within call. His uncle's spies and his rebel tormentor: the ones were only faithful as far as expedience and fear compelled. Only a fool expected real loyalty from a slave, everyone said, but one shouldn't have to expect disloyalty and ingrained betrayal. As for the other... He tried to avoid Gisca and did his best to restrain himself when he was compelled to be near the boy. It might be a fitting humiliation for the son of a monster and a rebel, but it was a cold and joyless satisfaction for his master to be served by the reminder of a father's death and to constantly see those eyes filled with a hatred that was never more than half-veiled by fear. Thus the burden of empire. Kaddar desired to be away from them all and from his chambers that they infested.

It was good to have a desire that he could act on. Kaddar let his stool scrape as he pushed it back and his table rattle as he rose and collected his reading and the lamp. The draft from his over-robe sifted the remaining loose sheets of notes to the floor when he turned away.

"Guardsman!" Kaddar waved away the soldier's salute. "I intend to walk in the Central Court. You will ensure I am perfectly undisturbed." Behind the euphemism was a command and the danger of imperial existence it implied; that command in turn made the pretense of his autonomy as imperial heir. The guard saluted in acknowledgement without questioning the princely whim that desired to keep inhuman hours - just as if the pretense were true. "And fetch me a light globe," added Kaddar.

Kaddar went by the winding way, skirting the menagerie gardens, enjoying the stillness and the complete dark. There, casting a few fiery gleams back at his lamplight, was the fountain where he had begged to play on his first childhood visit to the palace. He remembered his sister walking along the top of that half-wall, their father steadying her by the hand. But he could not think about that - Kaddar made sure that the memories did not linger far beyond the spots that inspired them.

It did not take long, however, to arrive at the palace's principle center garden. By day, it would bustle with ladies talking by the pool and ministerial aides snatching a moment in the sun. It was hardly silent at night, either: the cicadas kept a constant whispery rattle under the stars, a desert owl called from one of the ancient arching trees, and Kaddar could hear a choir of frogs faintly squeaking from their artificial pond. But there were no people, and, when he had taken the light globe and sent the man off to walk guard, Kaddar could imagine that he was truly alone.

For a while, he examined the plants, more by touch than by the steady-faint magelight; he had not come in nearly a week. The northern pine that he and Master Lindhall had coaxed into the Carthaki desert seemed to be doing well: the earth was still damp around it, and, extending his senses into the soil, he could perceive that the mineral mix he had helped the master devise was integrating itself into the dirt. Kaddar spent a long time feeling leaves and soil. But he was glad to move to the native plants he secretly preferred: papyrus and lotus in watery channels, agapanthus and roses. In his father's gardens, the first rose plant the gardener had let Kaddar tend had flowered on Tecmesso's fifth birthday. He had been so proud to give the blossom to her, and she had giggled and pricked herself on the thorns and kissed him anyway. Metorat's family lands were too cold for roses. _Don't think about that, Prince_.

To distract himself, he thought about the soil: chalky and silted and the perfect rich black for barley and wheat. They had taken samples a few weeks ago to send South: there, as in Khazoi and Siraj, some minimal relief might be worked sympathetically. But with only women and peasants left for mages – if one could call such _mages_ – the greater populace of the empire would have no relief from the drought this year. "I should counsel prayers, and then whatever most powerful sacrifices you have," Master Reed had warned the several provincial ministers who had sought private audiences with the University mages. Kaddar had not dared to be so explicit with his own stewards. He hoped they were sufficiently devout to perform or order as many of the appropriate rituals as they could do discreetly and under the cover of the vulgar's superstitious ignorance.

'Great Mother have mercy on us. Pent up your Maladies from us – please, Lady.' He dared not do more than breathe the prayer, and hoped that it would be neither an offense to the gods nor suspected by some watcher of the Emperor's. 'Mithros, I beg you, Lord, restrain your punishment. Lady of Chance, save your land.' He could not look over his shoulder, and he hoped that the briefest kiss pressed to the ground would be invisible in the leaves and shadows. 'So mote it be.'

"Ho there!" A rustle and a shout interrupted Kaddar, and he jumped, his covert prayer almost unfinished. Under night's quiet, the guardsman's thumps and threats carried into the privacy of the garden, aligning poorly with his beating heart: "No cause for alarm, Imperial Highness," called the guardsman over squeals and curses. "Just a message-boy thought he was too fine for the tunnels." Another scuffle and the slap of a blade's flat, and the guard's voice dropped to a hiss: "if you don't get quiet, you'll be sucking the Black God's balls quicker than you can beg for mercy, boy. I'll just have him removed, sir, and teach him his lesson, just as soon as my second arrives."

In other circumstances, Kaddar would have smiled, but he nonetheless made himself rise carefully and speak serenely. "Whom? Let me see him." It would be one thing, if it was one of his uncle's secret spies armed with listening spells, or one of the detestable worms from his own household, but it was possible that someone's innocent servant had been caught in the venial crime of preferring open air to discretion. Kaddar was forbearing, after all. He raised up the globe-lamp as the guard shoved a boy forward and forced his face to the gravel.

"That's him, Your Highness," said the guard. He squinted under the combined light of their globes. "Sirajit animal." For it was indeed a young Sirajit: the son of Barca.

Kaddar clenched his fists by his sides but willed himself to appear calm. The boy was breathing hard, but he did not plead or make any sound at all, and Kaddar was certain that his submission was, as always, entirely perforce. Before he could fully collect himself, he had spoken. "You do not have leave to wander."

But Gisca pushed himself to his knees. A weal was rising on his cheek, which shone with tear traces. "Sir, I beg your pardon," he said. If there was a sneer in his voice, it was subtle enough to have been a courtier's ploy. But his eyes were as they always were.

The guard looked at the prince, plainly shocked that he would allow a slave to address him like an equal. Then he looked at the boy, and then, as realization dawned, he looked away.

"Were you sent to me?"

The boy's jaw tightened, but he kept his eyes up. "No...master."

"What errand are you on?"

"I...am taking a message to the women's quarters." He set his chin, evidently screwing up confidence.

"Whose message?"

Gisca hesitated, and then did not answer. That was plain enough.

The guard could only endure a moment of the slave looking the prince full in the face. "Enough!" he said, pushing the boy back to the ground. "Answer His Imperial Highness."

The boy cringed away from the rough treatment. "I wanted to see my sister, sir. Please."

It was suddenly hard for Kaddar to breathe, and his skin prickled with heat, although he felt very cold. Tecmesso's face flooded his mind: of course half the court knew he had been compelled to approve a degrading marriage he hated, but even every most wretched slave was party to his shame. Undoubtedly Gisca thought he could buy leniency and kindness through pity for a fellow brother. Well, he would not be manipulated: Barca's girl was no concern of his, and the fate of a captive, wretched and pitiable as it might be, was a fruitless pain to cry and had no resemblence to his own troubles.

The air was heavy, but the cicadas seemed to waft the scent of roses through the air. If he were to close his eyes, as he had so often written to Tecmesso during the past nine months, he could almost imagine himself at home. Tecmesso_…A sometime princess at the mercy of any brute. Father dead, denied even a brother's real protection_… By the Hag's plague rats he did not want to think about this!

"Get out of my sight," he ordered, hoping that his voice did not choke and that he could keep anger and frustration hidden. The boy scurried away – undoubtedly he knew some sneaking slave's method to get into the concubines' quarters. "Next time," said Kaddar coldly to the guardsman, favoring him with an imperial glare, "be more quiet when you remove disturbances." The man hastily saluted and returned to patrol, undoubtedly to complain about capricious princes and their impossible demands on honest working men.

Kaddar waited until stillness had returned, then rearranged his globe and his scrolls and settled back to his reading. But he could not dismiss thoughts of poor Tecmesso and Turnus Metorat's grasping foul hands upon her.


	10. Io Triumphe!

**Io Triumphe**

Once upon a time, the general who had triumphed in a campaign to defend and extend the empire had made his first approach to the city of Carthak before dawn. In the dark and still outside the Sacred Wall, he heaped up a primitive altar, with his own hand wielding the implement with which the earth was turned up and piled, and there - by terrible and ancient obligation - he immolated his highest-ranking prisoner to the Graveyard Hag. Then he headed his victory procession, smeared with sacrificial blood and glowing and white-hot like a god, with mages raising him above the shoulders of the crowd as he marched in front of his soldiers and captives. Thus accepting the obeisance of the people, he slowly made his way through the city, until at last, late in the afternoon sun, he was washed and purified before the temple of Mithros, where he burned holy and clean offerings on the altar. In the old days not even the emperor had taken precedence but had stood apart as merely one of the noblemen who knelt with all the citizens as supreme power and priesthood was yielded for a day.

One could argue (and Kaddar would not stand against it) that such archaic brutality was unnecessary; they said that even Kaddar's father Ghazanoi, who on the strength of his marriage into the imperial house had been the last general permitted to make the full victory procession after his first triumph over the southern Shushini, had made only a symbolic sacrifice to the goddess. But there were surely some here, Kaddar thought as he looked out over the crowds gathering around the Imperial Hill on specially-erected scaffolds and packing the streets far beyond them, who could tell stories of the great victories over Ekallatum and Yamut in the reign of Fazim Gold-Born. Did they think their rulers had become soft, or were they glad to be a more merciful people? Did they wonder and mutter that there was no propitiation of the gods, no formal thanksgiving? Did it even cross their minds to resent that Carthak's greatest generals and the recent representatives of her ancient military pride were being denied their traditional debt of glory? Or were they happy enough with this abbreviated spectacle that merely affirmed the emperor's supreme place? What did the soldiers feel? Was this enough exaltation and glory to compensate for the hard life and hard discipline of war? What would it have been like, indeed to witness one of those legendary, primitive triumphs of not even a century past? What would it have meant to be a young officer in training, to have struggled through a difficult and uncertain campaign for a year or more, and to finally see the fruits in that mysterious, ecstatic procession?

Of course, he could reason, these wars were no longer wars of expansion and conquest but of mild pacification, and the Emperor's aegis rightfully stood over and guided every commander, whether he fighting in the field or triumphant in the capital. To extend, moreover, even a day's outstanding primacy to any general was a risk; to an ambitious one it was an invitation for a more dangerous kind of rebellion. Kaddar himself - in the confines of his mind he could be honest with himself and admit that he valued the old ways, but were he (Mithros forfend the thought) on the imperial throne, he would not want to extend such an honor to a Metorat. Still, he thought, as he took his place on the Royal Steps, he would have said that it was neither pious nor conducive to a stable government to neglect the outward forms of religion, or to abandon so entirely the spirit of ancestral ways.

Artificial breezes of the mages had kept the court pavilion cooled to a glittering and comfortable warmth under the morning's late summer sun. In the corner of the court, with the lesser nobles and the representatives of University, Mistress Kingsford and Master Reed looked stiff and uncomfortable. It was as if even all the sorcery that fully-trained mages could muster could not penetrate the thick Eastern-style clothing under their robes or shade bodies that had not been born for the heat. Or perhaps, Kaddar conceded, eying his teacher at the very edge of his line of vision, they were uncomfortable at such a display of Carthaki power. He wondered briefly what Master Reed would have made of the old ritual.

General Metorat's parade was approaching the Steps, having made a shortened and more decorous passage through the city. The old approach would have come from the west, circling the shrine of Thak the Hero and old amphitheater, then past the temple of Shakith, the basilica of the Black God, and up the Imperial Hill to the Temple of Mithros. But today they processed from the harbor directly to the back of the Palace district and the eastern foot of the Imperial Hill. Horns, trumpets, and fifes sounded the battle-alarum, but the army - or at least the selected companies of soldiers - were orderly behind their officers. From the second tier of the Steps, the spectacle looked like a red and gold dragon displaying its scintillated crests where the sunlight caught and flashed on a spear or a helmet. The rebellious Shushini lords had adopted a great snake as a symbol of their attempt at power, and Kaddar knew that some of the captives were perforce carrying banners showing the emperor's hyena and stormwing clutching and tearing the upstart emblem. Ironic, that the army as a whole was revivifying it writ large on the city of Carthak itself. But as General Metorat halted his army at the foot of the hill to await the signal to proceed, the snake disappeared into the disciplined military core at the heart of the mass of Carthaki populace that seemed to stretch out as far as the horizon.

The trumpets and crumhorns blared, and, like an actor in a play, Kaddar dropped to his knees and bowed his head to the ground in a full obeisance as the emperor appeared. The court ranked along the tiers of the Steps down the hill knew their parts in the spectacle, however degenerate an imitation of that pure and rugged ancient ritual it might be. Yet Kaddar still felt his heart catch a little at the true majesty of the sight as he rose with the rest of the court. This was the greatness of the peoples of Carthaki and their far-flung domains. He was afraid that the selfishness and impiety of one man might forfeit it all.

Duke General Metorat was a short stocky man with a pointed chin and a pointed nose that looked too small for his flushed face. He was plainly sweating in his parade uniform, with his dour face composed into a look of gratitude and a sense of being honored. They were nothing alike, but Kaddar wondered if he would never be able to see a standard-bearing general of Carthak in full dress without thinking of his own father. He wished he could turn away. As the emperor raised his general and turned him to face the people in victory, Kaddar wondered what kind of father-in-law Hego Metorat would be to his sister. An absent one, most likely. Would that be a relief for Tecmesso, or would it mean the loss of the only slight source of decency in her husband's household?

Absorbed in his thoughts, Kaddar nearly missed Farid Baeculsikh as he passed by with the general's officers and junior legates. Maharcal's brother looked straight ahead as he marched up to the dais to be greeted and personally rewarded by his Emperor. A fine day for a loyal soldier indeed. By now the sun was high. The fan-bearers' and mages' efforts were poorer protection against the heat, and none against the glare of polished armor as it marched by. Kaddar would have liked to slip away; he was not a child to be delighted by mountains of tribute and treasures. But a prince had duties, and a slave slipped to kneel with a small basket of coin as the soldiers began to pass. Although they were walking in full kit in companies and accompaniment to the carts and bands of captives, they appeared, for the most part, to be admirable specimens of Carthaki manhood: untired by the final slope up the Imperial Hill. Not so the Shushini prisoners straining and groaning to bring their emperor the tribute their rebellion had denied him, or weeping in their chains and once-fine silken robes. But for them Kaddar could spare little thought as he pressed coins into rough palms, smiled graciously, thanked men them for their service in the emperor's name. Some stopped to grip his hand and others to kiss it; a few looked up in surprise at finding that he did not entirely lack a fighting man's callouses. It occurred to him that he might someday witness this spectacle from the other side, when he himself became a junior officer. Or more likely, that he would have experienced it in some other world. He was no longer the sort of nobleman who learned his manhood on campaign.

Near the end of the train, one man, a column-sergeant, looked at him hard then pointed, as he called to his company: "It's Ghazanoi's son!"

A cheer went up, and Kaddar felt a lump in his chest and heat behind his eyes. "It's an honor to my father's name and a great gift to me that you remember his service."

But the pleasant pain of remembrance vanished when out of the corner of his eye he saw what might have been a thoughtful expression settle on his uncle's face. _You have to fix this, and you have to act now_. He smiled, as cheerfully and unfalsely as he could. Grabbing the basket from the astonished boy, he tossed its remaining contents over the last of the soldiers. "For Emperor Ozorne! Long may he triumph!"

The men were ready and eager to pick up the cheer. "To the Emperor! To Ozorne! Triumph to Emperor Ozorne!" Kaddar didn't dare to look at his uncle, but clapped with the rest of the court.

A spontaneous eruption of support from the army was a fine way for the emperor's triumph to end. The court repaired to an upper pavilion that caught what breeze a summer evening offered, where slaves were even now setting out tables and couches and beginning to bring cool melons and sherbets iced with mountain snow to satisfy their masters. In the city below, every freeborn subject was feasting on meat and bread and a cup of wine at the emperor's expense; here, at the table on the dais, the wine itself was flecked with minute particles of gold.

General Metorat and his senior officers were honored to recline at the emperor's table, while Kaddar exercised imperial hospitality to the junior legates. Although they praised the emperor's generosity and urged each other to try the different dishes, they were far more decorous than young noblemen celebrating their first triumph might be expected to be. They would have liked, Karadd suspected, to toast their fallen comrades and indulge in more celebration than they felt was permissible just here. For his part, he was politely solicitous: he felt out of place among older and experienced men, who, in other circumstances, would have seen him as a boy to be impressed with the stories of the life he would one day begin himself. But he was not simply a younger cousin or brother, and his rank seemed to enforce a restrained politeness was plainly strained and constraining to everyone. He felt that he was being quite a failure as a host

"After a day in the sun in full kit, I daren't drink more than the toasts, Your Highness," said one man by way of apology as he waved away the wine-pourer.

With evident reluctance his companion followed suit, glancing toward the emperor's table. Kaddar dared to misinterpret his look. "Is the General a very strict commander, then?"

"Oh not so much, Your Highness. He worked the men hard enough-"

"And us too!" There were laughs and nods of agreement.

"-But there was never any pretense that we ought to be Utikensi's men." The heroic general had forced his army through the desert of Siraj with no provisions, and no distinctions of rank for any of his men. One of the legates nudged the speaker and whispered something, causing a heavy blush to immediately darken his olive skin.

"Forgive me, Highness – I hadn't heard the news, that you and General Metorat are to become kin. No one could be more worthy to earn his family such an honor than the general. He is honorable, steadfast, and loyal, Prince Kaddar," the legate continued earnestly, "and he is sure to have instilled the same virtues in his son."

There were assents and cheers. One of his companions showed approval by pounding the speech-maker on the back, and he ducked his head shyly in a vain attempt to conceal the embarrassment that his light complexion made plain.

The other officers were quick to take up the theme.

-"Congratulations, Your Highness!"

-"May your sister quickly give Old Measurer grandsons!"

-"Just imagine what a son she could bear for Carthak, with two such grandfathers!"

On the excitement of that last wish, the brief moment of genuine warmth provoked by the thoughts of marriage, children, and the continuance of military dynasties passed back into politely muffled sounds of eating.

"Will you follow your famous father, Your Highness, and hold the military offices?" ventured someone at last.

The question had been dancing at the edge of Kaddar's thoughts all day, but he had not let it come to the forefront of his mind. In only a few more years, he would be old enough to hold a junior post. Were he not the emperor's heir, were his father still alive, were he not his father's son...Before his father's death and before his adoption, he would have hated the thought and fought against it. Now, being more attuned to duty and opportunity, to the fragility of real friendship and camaraderie, he was not as sure.

"My desire is to serve the Carthaki people however I may," he said quietly. "But it not for me to venture to say how."


	11. Epistolary Interlude

_From Kaddar Ghazanoi Iliniat to Tecmesso Ghazhanai Iliniat, health and greetings._

If you are well, my dear, dear Tecmesso, and my mother is well, then I am also well.

I am sure that you and Mother are too wise to regret missing the foul heat of the city and – what is worse – the press of flattering and perfumed courtiers. Nor would I wish you exposed to the crowds and the sun in the spectacle that the People require. (I have heard His Majesty say that he does not relish the pomp, for he should prefer to leave the greater part of the glory to the soldiers whose bodies accomplished the feat, while he himself enjoyed quiet.) But so that you will not be able to complain that you were absent from General Metorat's triumphal parade, I shall give you an account of it.

We assembled early on the Royal Stairs, and I was honored to stand just below the Emperor. The court was spread out in order of rank. Everywhere was the to-ing and fro-ing of sunshades and fan-bearers and chilled wine – and this in spite of the mages' best efforts! We were far above the city, and so I can only tell you what my impression was as the army approached. The soldiers appeared in good order and fine polish: you would see the gleam from far away, and then the warm shimmer growing brighter, and then the blinding lightning flashes or the rays of ten thousand stars as the companies marched. It was like a great serpent of steel and bronze, whose roar was the clashing of shields and the happy cheers of the populace. But you will have to imagine, just as I did, what deafening sound and unbearable heat and glare and stifling press the people lining the streets of the city must have endured in order to witness the triumph and might of our empire.

First General Metorat approached and His Majesty congratulated him; I could see that he was relieved to be done with marching and grateful to lay the burden of field command back at His Majesty's feet. He was followed by his lieutenants and legates all in their richest parade dress. The emperor thanked each by name. Among them Farid Heroboi Aelsikh, who is the elder brother of my friend Maharcal. The ordinary soldiers marched past the steps, except as many as were compelling the captives and carrying the tribute of Jiang-Ra. Here I am afraid that my perception fails, me, and I can only sketch the impression of curious treasures from silver and pale stone; silk robes in a thousand colors and embroidered in a thousand more, mountains of golden bangles (for such is the high cost of rebellion). There were not more than 1000 captives, I was told: some were sullen in their chains; others showed their inner nobility with serene faces in spite of their bare feet and arms twisted back and shackled. The greater number of these latter are in fact the children of chieftains, whom the emperor purposes to keep not as slaves but as honored hostages, so that they may learn our ways, and show their lands how merciful and bountiful Carthak is under his Majesty's gracious rule.

But my celebratory tone must become a little more serious, for I have to write to you now not just as a brother but as an older brother and your guarding. Our Imperial Uncle wishes you to marry the son of General Duke Metorat. I pled your youth and inexperience – do not be angry at the words, Tecmesso! – but His Majesty earnestly desires this, and you know I would not oppose my uncle or my emperor. I hope that a betrothal will suffice for the present, and that you will be permitted more years to enjoy your girlhood and grow into a woman. I am afraid that I am not expressing myself naturally - please forgive your brother! I do not know how to write about these serious things as a brother to his beloved sister, and I am sure that you are reading this letter in disgust because I did not have better trust in your own innate good sense. Be assured that I do, and I fully expect that you will teach me mine when you and our mother finally come to Court. Perhaps these nine months in the Capital with so many elegant and subtle noblemen and courtiers have corrupted me into a creature who cannot express himself clearly and simply! I am sitting in the courtyard, and when I close my eyes, the sounds and the scents make me almost think I am back home. I shall try then, to recapture the simple, plain, and true speech of home as I write to you.

I think about our Father nearly every day, and I want to remind you of something that he would often say: _that when we act out of duty and in accordance with our orders from our superiors the gods and their deputies, there is nothing that is truly painful or unpleasant; our consciences must be strong, but if they are so, then our bodies and the lower, passionate parts of our minds will obey us, whose bodily condition is then negligible_. (This is like what Druson says about the primacy of the intelligent mind over the corporeal, but it is the practical wisdom of a nobleman and a soldier, who understands what part of himself he must surrender to the power of the common good.) I picture our father as he was when he was alive: his tallness, his imposing but kind visage, the godlike darkness of his cheeks, his stern and piercing eyes. The weight of his authority when he put his hand on my shoulder or embraced me, and the clear low roar of his admonition. I have come to learn or at least experience the natures of many men, and now I truly understand how exceptional his character was, admixing as it did the best learning and culture of Carthak with ancient virtue, yet unadulturate because recently brought and newly distilled from the old-fashioned vintages of the provinces to the tables and center of our Empire. When he spoke of the gods and of necessity and of sacrificing one's pleasures, I knew always that it was true. And we have seen it fulfilled in his life and death.

Imagine, my sister, our father upon his charger in battle: his seat, his sword, his expression. His seat: constant on a horse always guided to the most opportune part of the field; his sword: flashing justice and authority that is aimed at the common good; his expression: unyielding to the accidents of war but committed to the gods' care and his duty. Examine yourself against him. do you ride your position in life as firmly and efficiently, and with as good attention to both the necessity of the moment and the common profit of the future? Do you exert yourself always in accordance with your duty and aim all your resources and privileges therein? Is your mind fortified against the chances of life but submissive to the commands of duty and fate? You object, perhaps, that I am putting a man's example before you when you are a woman. But I know that our father's steadfastness and goodness guide you, and, as your state is suddenly changed from maidenhood to the woman's world, I am afraid that you will have need of "good precepts and – what is more important – of good examples" for dealing with greater things than before. I revere our mother, and urge you to imitate her virtues in every way, but your life at Khazoi is farther removed from the city in morals and scope than it is in distance. When you come to Carthak, and especially when you have become a princess of the court and a woman betrothed and then married, think that every hour is the crisis of battle that demands your foresight and valor. Although you are a woman, act with the constancy that is a rare virtue even in a man.

Having given you so much advice that I hardly have any right to pronounce, I shall break off, asking you to pass on my loving affection to our mother and remember that you are my dearest most beloved sister and I wish that nothing would ever trouble you in all the world. Be well.

**~•~•~**

_From Tecmesso Ghazhanai Iliniat to her very dear brother Kaddar Ghazanoi Iliniat, Prince of Siraj, &c. the warmest, most affectionate greetings._

I have a difficult task, my Lord and my Brother, to answer your most recent letter, which is as impressive and learned and gentle as if you yourself were standing in my chamber and advising me; and as if, through your words, I seemed to see our father and hear instruction from his own dear mouth. I must tell you that our mother approves very much of what you wrote about our father, and Lord Paiewen pronounces it a vigorous admonishment in fine good style, as he is wont to say (although – forgive my presumption, but I must say it and I know you are fonder of the truth than flattery, dear brother! - I am inclined to think that your citation of Druson was a little bit forced, and the analogy of the vineyard was pretty but overly fastidious). Our mother had communicated to me His Imperial Majesty my Uncle's will, but I think that I understand your meaning, as well. I am not afraid of marriage, Kaddar, and – if it is permitted for a younger sister to sound so bold when she writes to her wise brother and guardian – I do not think I shall be any more unequal to the task of womanhood and marriage than any other female – 'come it now or anon' – especially when you present me with such manly examples of patience and endurance of fate. I am sure, at any rate, that my Imperial Uncle would not give me to a husband, and you would not acquiesce in it, were not my marriage in the best interests of Carthak, and that must be sufficient reason for me. Nor could I regret a husband from such a noble father as you have described, and from a house that has brought so much glory – as pleasant to read about in your fine description as to witness – to the reign of our Gracious Emperor. So 'though I female be, yet I'll be resigned,' and what is more important: you need not fear on my behalf.

Now I shall relate to you, in proper girlish style, a cunning story about Tito's kittens. When they were all five weaned last winter, we had judged four of them - hardy and dull animals - to be of servile nature, whence we sent them to the granaries. But the noble descent of the fifth was immediately recognizable: he was proud and of high bearing, and dainty and handsome besides. I named him Wanqem and we endowed him with a cushion at his dear mother's side.

Now I confess that I spoiled my darling pet. Look! Wanqem is fast grown: sleek and haughty he deigns not chase wool or leap at the hems of a robe. He would look disdainfully at the shadows of my maids and would rather laze gloriously on his mistress's lap than stir himself for coaxings and tricks. But I cannot fault him, for, as you know, cats are no philosophers, as the rustic said to the Shang Warrior. And besides, you will see that he had yet the sign of true nobility in him.

I had ridden out to circuit the working estate, and my lord Wanqem was proud and content in a little basket at my saddlebow. We had just circled the granaries when Nibpul (he is the under-steward now. since the spring) ran to my mare and begged me to settle to a small matter among the hands – I shall not trouble you with the details, for you have many greater concerns, and it was entirely trivial. We dismounted and I heard the dispute, with Wanqem in my arms, for he was too fastidious to set his paws on the dirt! I was just accepting his gratitude (I mean from Nibpul), when we hear a fearsomely pitiful yowl and a poor cat scurries from one of the barns, pursued by blows and deprecations of his laziness. Shrieking women, servile insults: the scene has a comical mien, but suddenly my Wanqem is stirred, he leaps from my arms and interposes himself with proud and lordly stare between the wretched animal and his punishment, as if to say: "I place this creature under my protection, and you slavish hands shall never touch him!" It seems he had recognized his suckling-mate and strove to keep him safe with all the favor of his own grand station.

Even Mother laughed when I related the adventure and drew the moral, which I shall not presume to teach you, for I am sure you can subtly divine it! I am sure, also, that you and your fine companions will laugh at the triviality of country adventures, and you will all pronounce me unfit for marriage or any serious pursuit. You will be equally unimpressed, I am sure, to hear that your sister is is becoming astonishing good at measuring out the day's work to the women. But measurement and a careful eye are a woman's virtues, and if I am a poor, unsophisticated excuse for a bride, at least I shall keep my lord Metorat's household in order, and no one shall say that Princess Tecmesso is proud but useless!

I do not want you to think that I am not serious, my dearest dear Kaddar, because indeed, I am very serious. You urged me to consider my father's example and to remember that I have a duty, just as if I were a soldier of the emperor's legion. I think that my little fable has answered this in part, but I shall tell you the rest more plainly. I know that no woman is so high born but she is under the command of her husband. As no soldier his general, as no deputy his officer, as no man his emperor, so no woman is wise to question her lord, be he just or unjust. Do not worry that I do not realize what a state of freedom a maiden has, especially if she is the only daughter and her guardian is far away at the imperial court, and an indulgent brother besides. But a married woman has certain privileges, too, and I shall be ready to pass into a new state whenever you and My Royal Uncle think it good.

I am sending you 10 loving kisses in this letter and (what I fear you will like even more), the last peaches from the late-blooming tree at the end of the orchard. Think fondly of me, and be well.


End file.
